CULVER CITY, CALIF. -- Since taking the reigns as chief executive officer in the fall of 2001, Bill Ford Jr. has put his stamp on Ford Motor Co. by returning the company to profitability, fostering teamwork and committing the company to creating more environmentally friendly products as it refashions its car and light truck offerings, says the company's newly promoted chief operating officer.

Jim Padilla, who in April went from running Ford's business in North America to overseeing daily operations around the world, says Bill Ford, great-grandson of founder Henry Ford, has challenged Ford executives to find ways to make "business sense" of environmental matters.

"Bill Ford is a different kind of CEO," says Padilla, 57. "Bill is not your conventional command-and-control CEO. He's very thoughtful. He's a great listener.

"But believe me, he's involved in every decision we take at Ford Motor Co. He's open. He wants debate. And he usually reserves his own judgment until he hears it all. And that's kind of non-conventional for most CEOs in Detroit."

Different as he may be, Ford still leads a company that earns most of its profits from very conventional and gas-guzzling sport-utility vehicles and pickup trucks.

The profits are real, nonetheless. At the company's recent 49th annual general meeting, Ford reported first-quarter profit of $1.9-billion (U.S.). Ford can now boast nine straight quarters of profitability, after combined losses of $6.45-billion in 2001-2002.

Bill Ford, however, has been extremely public about his environmentalism. So it remains a black eye for both him and the company to have the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency report that Ford ranks dead last in average fuel economy of the top six auto makers selling vehicles in the United States (18.8 mpg).

Blame that sorry showing on all those thirsty SUVs and pickups Ford profits from.

"We've got a lot more work to do, there's no question about that," says Padilla.

"Nobody is doing a victory lap or anything like that. Everybody [in senior management] is taking a look at what we've done and we've seen progress, and we've got to accelerate that, build on that. And product is one of the key drivers."

Among the new models is the world's first gasoline-electric hybrid SUV, the Ford Escape Hybrid that will go on sale in August. The Escape is one of 40 new vehicles Ford will launch worldwide in 2004.

This fall, Ford will also introduce three new vehicles with an optional continuously variable transmission, which saves fuel and helps optimize engine performance. But all three -- the Ford Five Hundred sedan, Ford Freestyle SUV and Mercury Montego sedan (not sold in Canada) -- are still very large vehicles.

A major challenge at Ford, then, is to market these large new models while also remaining true to the new company mantra, "to build great products, a strong business and a better world."

To that end, Bill Ford announced at the annual meeting that Ford Motor is committed to spending 50 per cent of its research budget on technology designed to boost fuel economy and reduce harmful emissions. He hasn't disclosed an actual dollar figure, however.

Still, Padilla says the Escape Hybrid is Ford's first serious venture into sophisticated "green" products, but it is definitely not the last, even though annual volumes of 20,000 Escapes are minuscule for a company that sells more than 900,000 fuel-swilling F-series pickups each year alone.

"This [Escape] certainly is more than an experiment at Ford Motor Co.," says Padilla.

Ford has created a new 200-person unit responsible for developing more gasoline-electrics and other advanced low-emission/high fuel economy vehicles for its product portfolio. Escape Hybrid chief engineer May Ann Wright heads up the new Ford Sustainable Mobility Technologies and Hybrid Vehicle Programs Group.

"What we are doing is staging ourselves to be responsive to the marketplace," says Padilla. "And if there are any unforeseen external events we've gotta be capable of moving. We think hybrid technology is a very intelligent technology.

"It's very fuel-efficient, very low-emissions and will appeal to a lot of people. But there's a cost; it isn't cheap.

"But we think it's time to take it off the research test bed and put it into something and put it out there where the real bullets are whizzing around."

But Padilla also acknowledges that Ford still has work to do on the quality front. In the most recent J.D. Power and Associates Initial Quality Study, Ford kept its below-average ranking, with 127 problems per 100 vehicles in the first 90 days of ownership. The industry average was 119.

Toyota, Honda, Hyundai, BMW, General Motors, DaimlerChrysler and Subaru all beat Ford in the rankings.

Still, for a company that once ran with the slogan "Quality is Job One," trailing South Korea-based Hyundai in Power's findings must rankle.

"Give them a lot of credit," says Padilla. "Let's see if they can sustain it over time."

The theme of sustainability comes up often with Padilla, who has been through three major reorganizations at Ford during his career. This latest one, he suggests, will have legs because Bill Ford Jr. insists that the auto maker stick with the "back-to-the-basics" principles that first made Ford Motor a global auto giant.

"I think that you'll find that every time the company has had large success, we've also tended at times to divert from the fundamentals and proceed with some things that weren't necessarily core," says Padilla. "And what Bill Ford is adamant about is that we're going to stick to the basics. We're going to build great cars and trucks and take care of our customers."